twined like the tendrils of the vine around the oak for sympathy and support, have suddenly shaken us from their embrace, and stand before us divested of very superhuman virtue with which our fond imagination had invested them. Then comes no seraphic vision of future bliss when those joys that have died to us on earth shall rise again in immortal bloom in the perennial garden of heavenly verdure, but, like blasted copse or blighted heather no trace of life or sign of vegetation appears to revive the drooping spirit. Let such derive consolation from the following words of a celebrated writer, words that go so deep into the inner sanctuary of the soul and reveal so much of the real poetry of the heart-life that they cannot be too often repeated.
"If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friendship,—a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul,—if ever you have so loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish considerations have gone down like drift-wood before a river flooded with new rain from heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and .were ready to cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing,—if you awoke bitterly betrayed and deceived, still give thanks to God that you have had one glimpse of heaven. The door now shut will open again. Rejoice that the noblest capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known to you; treasure it, as the highest honor of your being, that ever you could so feel,—that so divine a guest ever possessed your soul. By such experiences are we taught the pathos, the sacredness
